The last time
I saw Teenage Head, Frankie Venom was swinging from the pipes over the
stage, and Gordie Lewis’s guitar sound was circumnavigating my
eardrums. Now here we are in the pristine white event space of the
Art Gallery of Hamilton, sitting in civilized rows around a raised
platform (call it a stage) on which sat four current (or ex) members
of the band along with pop critic Geoff Pevere, the author of the new book on the band, Gods of the
Hammer, and Hamilton Spectator columnist Graham Rockingham waiting for A
Conversation With…Teenage Head. “A Conversation”! Who would've thought?

Look around. The crowd is here, black
leather jackets have given way to wool overcoats, and Converse All
Stars have been replaced with loafers. The ladies look good, high
heels, black stockings, short skirts, very sophisticated. Wait,
there’s a guy in denim, wearing a baseball cap, he’s carrying an
armload of old Teenage Head paraphernalia. Oh good, we’re not
completely civilized. Someone in front of us accidentally kicks over
her glass of dry white wine. Oh good, the floor’s sticky. Sure in
the old days it would’ve been a bottle of beer, or even a tableful
of draft, that was dumped, and for sure we wouldn’t have wiped it
up carefully with polyester napkins, and paper serviettes, we
would've simply waited for it to evaporate. The event is part of Hamilton’s
GritLit Festival. Now ten years old it celebrates the work of
Canadian writers (in general), and Hamilton writers particularly.
Peter Robinson (creator of Inspector Alan Banks) was here Thursday,
Emma Donoghue (Room and FrogMusic) stopped by
Friday, and Michael Winter, Catherine Bush and a host of others have
participated through the weekend. Tonight though, it’s Geoff
Pevere and everybody’s favourite punk band Teenage Head.

Pete MacAuley joined the band in 2011 (Photo: Janek Lowe)

Rockingham starts off with a cry to
action, trying to inject a little punk enthusiasm. It just seems
so…out of place in this sterile room. Even with a sticky floor,
this ain’t Larry’s Hideaway. As moderator Graham’s job is to
“converse” with the author and the band. To get them to open up
a bit, and share their inner feelings, maybe some secrets. “Have any of you guys read the book?”
he inquires. “Oh, uh, Pete has!” the band points
to Pete MacAulay, the current lead singer of the group. “It was pleasant…” Pete offers. “Pleasant”? That’s like saying
it was “Nice” isn’t it. He tries to expand on it, but drifts
off into something else. Rockingham tries to control things; Pevere
offers a comment or two about why he would write a book like this.
It’s part of a series from Coach House Books entitled ExplodedViews. According to Coach House’s website “it’s a
series of books on cultural issues meant to occupy that space between
a magazine essay and an exhaustive tome—not a 45 or an LP, but
maybe an EP.” Kind of like Continuum’s 33 1/3 series, but not
only focused on LPs. It might be a book about a film or a comic
book, or a well-loved rock’n’roll band.

Geoff Pevere sits at the end of the
table (next to him is Head’s drummer Jack Pedlar, then Head Head
guitarist Gordie Lewis, Dave Rave from a previous incarnation of the
band, and Pete who took on the unenviable task of filling Frankie’s
space “but not his place!”). Pevere talks about his passion for
the band, describing the development of that passion starting as a
university student, and following their career to the present day.

Gordie fills in fascinating biographical details. His early idols?
The Monkees, The Beatles. That’s right…the Pre-Fab Four and not
the Beatles from Liverpool, but the Saturday morning cartoon Beatles.
Seeing them on the tube made him want to join a group, live with a
bunch of friends in a house, with a firepole, and have a blast
playing music. He was also inspired by the music
coming from bands like The Ramones, Iggy Pop, and Alice Cooper so the
music he created was an amalgam of all of that. Lewis started his
musical life as a bass player. He liked plying bass, but when he
started to put the band together with drummer Nick Stipanitz.
Another friend wanted in. Steve Mahon didn’t play anything but
thought he could take over on bass, so Lewis had to switch to guitar.
Mahon was left-handed and just turned the bass upside down to play.
When he finally got a southpaw instrument he still had it strung
upside-down with the low string on the bottom. As a lefty myself, I
understand the situation but can’t imagine playing that way!

Dave Rave offered his opinion of the
mid-period Teenage Head when he was called upon to step in for
Frankie Venom. He spoke of the closeness of the band, and their
devotion to the music. Frankie’s name came up again and again. Frank Kerr was a year older than the
rest of them, and a true showman. Those of us who saw the band in
action will never forget his antics. He owned the stage, and every
part of the room as well. He could sing too. When the first album,
simply called Teenage Head, was released we might have been
disappointed with the production, but there was a musicality to the
songs that other so-called ‘punk’ bands were missing. And by the
time FranticCity came out they were in a category by
themselves. Powerful drumming, chunky chording, a heavy bass and
Frank’s voice, but Frantic City had guest musicians filling out the
sound with piano and saxophones. It was a step beyond punk. This came up in the conversation. Were
they really a punk band? Lewis didn’t seem to mind being
categorized that way but confessed that he thought they were
essentially “a band that played fast blues”! I’ll buy that.

After an hour of this kind of back and
forth it was time for questions from the audience. The questions
were focused on the writing of the book, and the philosophy of
creativity, but then there was a true ‘punk’ moment. “We have
time for one more question,” Rockingham announced. “Me! Me! Me!” our friend in the
denim jacket cried. He had made himself known throughout the evening
calling out comments from the floor. I think he annoyed Mr. Pevere
who replied once, “I know the story, I wrote the book!” But
Rockingham took his question at which time the fellow stood up and
laid all his posters on the table and declare, “I want you to sign
these!” Security was called. The party broke up and we repaired to
the sales room to pick up a copy (or two) of the book, and get them
signed. I went home and started to read.

Geoff Pevere, author of Gods of the Hammer

Gods of the Hammer is a great
title, echoing as it does the classic work by Stephen Davis (Hammer of
the Gods). That one tells the shocking story of Led Zeppelin’s
successes and excesses in gory detail. It includes the story of the groupie and the mud shark (which ended up documented in Frank Zappa's song "The Mud Shark").
Teenage Head though are gods of the Hammer, Hamilton, Ontario, the
Steel City that has spent a lifetime in the shadow of the Big Smoke. Gods of the Hammer tells their story, and it
follows the conversation quite faithfully, albeit with more detail,
and a few more witnesses. The witnesses are not unlike the witnesses
in Warren Beatty’s Reds. Remember them, they sat talking in front
of a curtain telling their remembrances of the American communist John Reed, who chronicled the Russian Revolution in 1917. It’s an
effective technique wrapped in a personal narrative, and essentially
providing a chronological account of their climb from the basements
of Westdale to hundreds of high schools, and bars, and clubs where
they made their living.

Because of the nature of the Exploded
Vision series, the tale is stripped down to its bare essentials,
much like a Teenage Head song. Three chords and the truth. But
loud and fast. And who would want it any other way. There are a
few black and white snapshots dropped in along the way but it’s the
story that matters, and Pevere tells it in a straightforward way. No
bullshit. You get the bad management, the ups and downs, the good
and bad, and the hopes and dreams of a group of guys from Hamilton
who wanted to be in a band. All told in 130 pages. Sure you could
wish for more, but you don’t need it, it’s all here. So,
c’mon…listen to the drums, that bass, those chords…

GIVE ME THAT OPENER, PASS ME THAT BEER
C'MON MOVE YOUR ASS, ON OUT OF HERE
WELL I GUESS YOU KNOW, I NEED SOME MONEY
BUT YOU ARE JUST, TO FAT AND UGLY